A Jefferson Parish jury of seven women and five men deliberated about three hours to find Cole participated in the home invasion and armed robbery that led to the death of Donald Bates. Judge Michael Mentz of the 24th Judicial District Court will sentence Cole on Sept. 4.

Bates, 53, was killed on the morning of Jan. 29, 2010, inside his Eastmere Drive home in the Woodmere subdivision. He was beaten with a baseball bat and shot five times. His wife returned home from her job hours later and found the front door was ajar and blood on the floor and walls. Deputies found Bates' body on the floor of a bathroom.

Arrested in a West Bank motel with her boyfriend, Skinner eventually admitted she knew about Bates' cash and that she enlisted Cole and Darnell Turner to get it, Burke testified. Two other witnesses, Katrice Baptist and Tanisha Stamps, testified that they dropped Cole and Turner off on Post Drive, down Eastmere from Bates' home.

Later that morning, Baptist testified, Cole and Turner called her to pick them up from a house on Marine Street in Marrero. That was just blocks from where deputies found Bates' partially burned work van the day after the homicide. The van had been stolen during the home invasion, authorities said.

Cole, Turner, Stamps and Baptist were arrested a week later at a hotel in Little Rock, Ark., prosecutors Clif Milner and Michael Morales said. Stamps testified that Cole admitted to her, as they showered together, that Bates resisted the robbery and so was killed.

Skinner pleaded guilty in 2012 and agreed to testify against Turner and Cole in exchange for averting a murder charge. She lived up to that agreement Wednesday, when she testified that Cole admitted to her that they killed Bates.

When he was arrested in Arkansas, Cole told detectives he was in Baton Rouge at the time that Bates was killed. His phone records showed otherwise, Morales said. "The cell phone records prove conclusively he was not in Baton Rouge the day of the murder," the prosecutor argued Friday.

Cole's attorneys, Bobby Hjortsberg and Jason Williams, argued that Skinner was a liar who blamed the crime on their client and Turner to protect her boyfriend, Kenneth Devore. Williams described Devore as "the real culprit."

"She's trying to make something up," Williams said. He acknowledged that Cole left the state with Turner. "I'm not claiming he's a rocket scientist. I'm just saying he didn't do this," Williams said, pointing to a crime scene photograph of Bates' body.

Milner said detectives investigated and cleared Devore. "We can't charge people just because their names surface," Milner said. "We can't do that."

The prosecutors presented to the jury phone records showing Cole and Turner were together. Cole's phone records showed he had traveled to the New Orleans area from Baton Rouge the day before Bates was killed.

The jury had been in deliberation about 2½ hours when a juror disclosed having recognized someone in the audience and being fearful. "Can we give/read our verdict in a courtroom that has been emptied of the visitors?" a juror wrote in a note the judge.

Mentz assured jurors their votes would remain secret. When the verdict was to be announced, he ordered the courtroom cleared of everyone but Bates' and Cole's immediate families and a reporter. Minutes later, the jury announced it had its verdict: Ten of the 12 jurors voted guilty, the minimum needed for a verdict.

Turner was convicted last year of second-degree murder and is serving life in prison. Prosecutors put him on the witness stand Thursday. Dressed in orange jail clothing and shackled at the ankles and wrists, he refused to testify against Cole.

Skinner, who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, is scheduled to be sentenced next week. She faces 20 to 30 years in prison.